Gameplay

In Hidden Leaders all players get assigned a leader card containing two factions (recognisable by color), as the title suggests, it remains hidden. Players win, if the red and green meeples are located in such a way one of these two factions suggests:

RED Red is located at least two spaces in front of green GREEN Red is located at least two spaces in front of green BLUE - Both pawns are located on the same space or one space apart BLACK both pawns are located in the war zone

Each turn players have a starting hand of 3 cards and take turns playing one card from their hand, performing specific actions that are shown on these cards. Most have something to do with the board containing the two pawns in the middle of the table or with cards. They can be played upside down, to remain hidden.

When one of the players has a number of cards facing upwards depending on the amount of players, the game ends and the player that has a leader of the winning faction wins the game. If multiple players win, the player that has the most cards in the winning color, wins the game.

Thoughts

👍 The gameplay is very fluent, it plays and teaches quick

👍 The artwork is really up my alley, I like this style a lot!

👍 I like the small game board that comes with the game and how the cards interact with it

➖ When playing multiplayer games, sometimes the colors are somewhat unevenly divided (for instance 3 red leaders in a 4 player game) and when players find out, as they often do in this game, it can feel a bit unfair/unbalanced. I think this might be ‘fixed’ by selecting hidden leaders to use in a 4 player game.

7/10